A SWAT for choosing Fluff over substance

For three years now, she's been a staunch defender of fluff - Marshmallow Fluff, that is. Apparently, it's no joking matter in Massachusetts.

She led the opposition back in 2006 when a state senator, incensed that his son was given a fluffernutter at school, introduced a bill banning districts from serving the sandwich more than once a week.

Reinstein charged in and countered with a bill that would make the fluffernutter - a peanut butter and marshmallow creme sandwich for the unenlightened - the official state sandwich.

It wasn't enough for her that the senator turned tail and ran after fallout from his proposal turned out to be far stickier than a fluffernutter. Fluff was invented in Massachusetts - in Reinstein's district, hence her bizarre preoccupation with the issue - and folks are ferocious in defending it.

What the senator - who must never have indulged in a fluffernutter - didn't know is that his legislation isn't needed, because fluffernutter affection for most folks outside Reinstein's office has a short lifespan.

When I was in second grade, I went through about a two-week addiction. Then the taste just became so cloyingly sweet that even someone with my sweet tooth couldn't take any more.

I quit, and I haven't had one since.

Reinstein's no quitter, though. A full three years after the original bill was abandoned, she's introduced yet another bill to make fluffernutter the state sandwich.

It's kind of funny that she keeps reviving the issue given her frustration with the whole thing back in 2006.

"I'm protective of Fluff; I grew up on it," Reinstein told the Boston Globe at the time. "But it's insane that we're having this conversation."

She's right about that.

Rep. Reinstein, Stop Wasting America's Time with your fluff about Fluff. Surely even in a state that's already addressed health care there are more important issues than a sandwich.

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